1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mounts or mounting brackets for supporting manually or hand operated gear change levers or shift levers on multi-speed bicycles. The present invention is a mount particularly for supporting a bicycle gear shift lever adjacent to and inboard of the hand brake lever on tightly undercurved road or street racing style handlebars, and within convenient reach of the rider's thumb while grasping on the handlebar.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, there are multi-speed bicycles having gear shift levers mounted on the frame down tube, with this shift lever mount position having the disadvantages of requiring the rider to release his grip from the handlebar in order to actuate the gear change lever, and oftentimes the rider needs to remove his eyes from the road momentarily to locate the gear change lever. The removing of one's hand from the handlebar can clearly pose control problems, as can removing one's eyes from the road, even if only momentarily, and may also lead to a brief loss of concentration which is undesirable in road racing.
Although there have been mounts for supporting gear shift levers on bicycle handlebars near the hand grip in the past, none of which I am aware are structured similar to my lever mount, nor, because of the structural differences, do they offer the benefits of the present invention. These prior art mounts for supporting the gear shift lever on the handlebar are structured for use on horizontally disposed, generally straight-bar off-road or dirt bike style handlebars which are absent the radical undercurves in the hand grip area common to road or street racing style handlebars found on multi-speed road or street racing bicycles. The prior art mounts structured for use on horizontally disposed and generally straight off-road (dirt bike) style handlebars are structured to support the shift lever adjacent to and inboard the hand grip, wherein the thumb of the rider is normally in a position to extend outward from the grip toward the handlebar stem (inboard) and parallel to the handlebar to actuate the shift lever. With such off-road handlebar type shift lever mounts, since the rider's hand is on the grip of the horizontally disposed bar, the thumb approach to the shift lever is such that the extending thumb is essentially on top of the handlebar and parallel thereto, and therefore these prior art lever mounts are necessarily very low profile and support the shift lever in very close proximity (1/4 to 3/4 inch) to the handlebar and aiming or extending toward the handle grip, and generally extending lengthwise parallel to the handlebar toward the hand grip.
I am not aware of any inexpensive and convenient to attach and use gear shift lever mounts for use with tightly undercurved road or racing style handlebars which are structured suitably for supporting a gear shift lever within easy reach of the rider's normal and typical grasp on undercurved road or racing style handlebars, and such a mounting bracket would be and is desirable in order to allow the rider to shift gears without having to release his grasp from the road style handlebar, or having to remove his eyes from the road to locate the shift lever. Additionally, such a shift lever mount would allow for shifting gears while simultaneously applying braking with the adjacent hand brake lever, and this too may be desirable in certain situations.